Interestingly, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who first went noisily public about his suspicions that Tirupati laddus were being made with animal fat, has never been an overtly religious politician or worn religion on his sleeve.
It has taken a controversy over laddus at the Tirumala Tirupati temple for the Supreme Court to finally emphasise that religion should be kept separate from politics. “We expect Gods to be kept away from politics,” declared the court in its order on allegedly contaminated Tirupati laddus.
At long last, the top court has sought to correct, at least by one sentence, the snowballing religion-isation of Indian politics. Almost every party is being forced to wear religion on its sleeve. In the decade of BJP dominance, the journey from so-called “minority appeasement” to a competitive majority appeasement has been achieved. The apex court has, by its order, at least forced some caution on the increasingly ready recourse to gods and goddesses to score at the ballot box.
Interestingly, Andhra Pradesh Chief Minister N Chandrababu Naidu, who first went noisily public about his suspicions that Tirupati laddus were being made with animal fat, has never been an overtly religious politician or worn religion on his sleeve. In fact, he’s always prided himself on his technocratic approach and on being India’s first “tech-friendly” CM. So why did Naidu suddenly feel compelled to play by a religious playbook and level the allegation that ghee used to make holy prasadam was contaminated by animal fat under the previous Jagan Mohan Reddy dispensation in Andhra?
The first part of the answer is that Naidu, now a BJP ally, was playing well-worn cynical politics and settling scores with his arch rival Jagan Mohan Reddy by pigeon-holing and stereotyping Reddy (who happens to be a Christian) as a minority community politician and asserting his own majoritarian credentials.
The second part of the answer is that even liberal technocrats are being forced to play by the Hindutva playbook. Very few are still as brave as Bengal CM Mamata Banerjee who has coined a pithy phrase of modern multiculturalism: “Dhormo jaar jaar, utsav shobaar (We all have the right to our separate faiths, and we celebrate all festivals together)”.
The lines between faith, god and politics have more than blurred over the last decade. The SC now says gods must be separate from politics. But the same Court in its 2019 Ayodhya judgement, while acknowledging that the demolition of the Babri Masjid in 1992 was an “egregious violation of the rule of law,” still unanimously allowed the disputed land (acquired by illegal means) to be returned to the Hindus and for a Ram Mandir to be built on it because the “faith and belief of Hindus… are in the Janmaasthan (sic) of Lord Ram.” The same court in 1995 held that Hindutva is a way of life and in 2016 refused to reconsider that judgment. It is the same Court which allowed the Archaeological Survey of India to examine the Gyanvapi mosque complex in Varanasi. When the mosque’s lawyer contended that the demand to examine the mosque was frivolous, the CJI said, “What is frivolous to you is faith to the other side.”
The courts’ unwillingness to draw red lines on “faith” and “devotion” in civic and public life has meant that politicians have seen this as permission to virtually bury the constitutional ideal of religion being a private matter and not a matter of state or government policy. The Constitution expressly forbids discrimination based on religion, yet the ruling BJP has been particularly guilty in constantly appealing to religious sentiments of one community against another to snatch the so-called Hindu vote. Modi’s politics is based on blurring the lines between faith and politics, as seen in all his speeches from the infamous 2002 “Hum paanch unke pachees” to his 2024 speech in Banswara in which he said “they will snatch your mangalsutra.” The BJP-RSS have laboured over the last decade to turn the cultural Hindu into a political Hindu. But what is troubling is that this so-called Hindu “political consciousness” is spreading to parties other than the BJP.
Another BJP ally, the once-secular Bihar CM Nitish Kumar, recently announced plans to develop temples in Sitamarhi. Actor turned politician, Andhra Pradesh Deputy CM Pawan Kalyan, leader of the Janasena Party, was once an ally of the Left and displayed posters of revolutionary Che Guevara at rallies. Today Kalyan sports a red tilak and saffron garments, is a self-styled defender of Sanatan Dharma and in the forefront of the Hindus-in-danger laddu outrage. The Congress government in Himachal Pradesh, pushed on the backfoot on the Hindu plank by the BJP’s high-pitched protests over a mosque in Shimla, announced that vendors should mandatorily display their names on stalls. It was borrowing from UP CM Yogi Adityanath’s announcement that all street vendors on the kanwar yatra route should display their names. Government policy on street vendors should be focused on food safety standards. Instead, an attempt was made to inject religious colour in the public’s food choices.
During the 2023 Karnataka polls when Congress promised to clamp down on the Bajrang Dal, Modi urged voters to chant “Jai Bajrangbali” while voting. The Congress responded in kind by also chanting “Bajrangbali ki jai.” In Bengal the BJP targeted Mamata Banerjee as “anti-Hindu,” accusations that didn’t stick given Banerjee’s deep roots in the Bengali cultural ethos. By dubbing all forms of minority welfare as somehow “anti-Hindu,” the BJP is forcing Opposition parties on the backfoot and pushing competitive Hindutva-isation in parties not as culturally deep-rooted as the TMC or DMK.
The BJP failed to win in 2024. Hindutva suffered a defeat in its Ayodhya bastion and in large parts of UP. But instead of the 2024 result spurring a rollback of religion-based politics, the BJP’s brand of Hindutva is becoming disturbingly all pervasive. Too many politicians today are falling into the laddu trap. It may require more than a one-line court observation to stir a change of direction. Civic constitutional participatory citizenship transcending religious faith must become the defining badge of identity in 21st century India.
The writer is a journalist and Member of Parliament, Rajya Sabha, All India Trinamool Congress
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First uploaded on: 07-10-2024 at 05:00 IST
